


five times lexa wished on a star (and one time it wished back)

by letthesongtakeflight



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canonical Character Death, Eventual Clarke Griffin/Lexa, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 11:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9070363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letthesongtakeflight/pseuds/letthesongtakeflight
Summary: “That is the wanderer. It is her fate to travel alone on her journey. She does not belong here, or anywhere, and she searches across all the night sky for her home."Lexa's always had a special star. And the wanderer always grants her wishes.





	1. i. leadership

It was a moonless night. The clearing was almost silent, except for the whisper of leaves as they caught from the wind the scent of starlight. A rustle from the ground told of a critter searching for seeds. From the trees in the east came a muted series of cracks. The rustling in the grass grew frantic. All of a sudden it was still once more.

Except for the pair of figures emerging into the glade. The first was taller, the second small, a child. Their dark hair was wreathed silver, starlight reaching down through the ragged circular gap to weave into their braids. The woman had a willowy build, her hair was glossy as a hawk’s feathers, a pair of braids swinging on each side of her slim face. The child’s, though the same colour, was wavy and wild, reaching down to her shoulders and up to bring her height to her mother’s waist. Even though it was braided, the braids seemed to have given up holding it back and you could not tell where her braids ended and her curls began. Her eyes were green as the forest on an early summer day, and sparkling with either wonder or starshine.

“Look, Lexa,” her mother called to her. The child ran, short legs stumbling to catch up with her mother long, certain strides. She took her hand in the middle of the clearing, and tilted her head back. Her mouth dropped open at the sight above her. The night sky was punctuated by pinpricks of light, as though the roof of the world was cracked and the light of the sun came through it. But unlike the sun, this wasn’t a golden light. Nor was it like the fires they lit in the village, warm and caught in a mesmerising dance. No, the stars glimmered with a cold light, and perhaps that dispassion should have frightened a child, especially one who recognized it, but Lexa wasn’t scared. They seemed to be calling to her. “Come to us,” they seemed to beckon as they winked. “We’ll tell you the stories of our people, and the stories of those who came before your people." 

Her mother pointed to a series of stars, tracing lines between them that twinkled just out of Lexa’s sight. “That one is the bear and her cub. And there is the hunter and his hound.” She pointed to a cluster of stars, one brighter than the others. “There is the princess, and her maiden warriors who protect her. Over there is the fish, you see his silvery tail? He’s trying to escape from the hawk above him, with the outspread wings."

Lexa followed her mother’s finger, trying to see the same shapes her mother did, to visualise silvery lines that stretched between the hound’s jaw and chest, or the ones that formed the hawk’s talons. She nodded anyway, hoping that perhaps she would see those magical lines between the stars when she was older. 

One star in particular caught her eye – one that did not hover in and out of visibility, teasing her, but was unfaltering in its bright light. Nor did it stand still, like the others; it drifted across the sky, slow but steady, as though it knew where it was going. It dove into the belly of the bull and barely escaped the hound’s snarling jaws. It skirted along the river’s banks and headed through the maiden warriors to the princess, and for a moment they were not two stars but one, glittering brighter than all the rest. 

“What about that one?"

Her mother chuckled. “That is the wanderer,” she replied. “It is her fate to travel alone on her journey. She does not belong here, or anywhere, and she searches across all the night sky for her home. So although she disappears sometimes, but you can always count on her to be back." 

Lexa smiled. She liked the wanderer, she decided, more than the hound, or the jar, or any of the warriors and heroes.

“You know this one,” her mother called her attention back. She linked several stars with her finger. “Her name is Becca."

“The first _Heda_ ,” Lexa said proudly.

“The first _Heda_ ,” her mother confirmed. “And you are her descendent.” She knelt down to her daughter’s eye level. It must be a reflection of the stars, Lexa thought, because why else would her _nomon_ ’s eyes be shiny? “She has chosen you by your Nightblood. And one if one day you become _Heda_ ,” her mother’s voice was thick, like something was stuck in her throat, “You must promise me that you will be a strong, wise, and kind leader."

“I will, _nomon,_ ” Lexa promised. Her mother kissed her on the cheek and something wet fluttered against her skin. She wiped at it in curiosity. It left had barely left a glimmer on her fingers before it became dry and sticky, so she wiped it on her pant leg.

“Now,” her mother’s voice had its usual optimism and practical edge back to it, “let’s make a wish on a star before we go back to the village. Choose carefully, Lexa, for each star will answer your wish in its own way."

Lexa looked up at the sky, at the winking lights, far too many to count, each beckoning to her. She scrunched up her nose. This was the most important decision yet in her life. Should she choose Becca, the first _Heda_ , to guide her footsteps? Or perhaps the archer, who could always hit his mark? Or the playful bear cub? She deliberated – and chose the wanderer. She closed her eyes, clasped her hands in front her her, scrunched up her face and wished, as hard as she could, that she would be the best _Heda_  the twelve clans had ever known.

 

 

 


	2. ii. compassion

They had forgotten about her in the aftermath of the battle. There were wounded to help into the healer’s already crowded hut, Azgeda prisoners to be tied up and interrogated by the clan leader, bodies to be collected and laid out in the centre of the village for their loved ones to say goodbye. A messenger was dispatched to the nearest village to borrow their healer.

Amidst all the chaos, no one noticed a girl of eleven winters standing in a corner of the village centre, out of the way of the hustle. Her face, unlined and unmarked with age or worry, was expressionless. She watched the commotion in the village with green eyes as dull as the dust swirled up by the dozens of feet rushing about. The dried crimson streaks of blood on her face was the only war paint she wore. Clutched between the slender fingers of her right hand was a dagger, the blade sharp, a drop of blood gathered at its tip like a ruby, almost ready to –

“Haven’t you got anything better do to?” The drop of blood splashed onto the sand by her boots. She looked blankly up into the face of her mentor.

“I just stabbed him,” she said, her childish voice in a low monotone, “and he… the spirit left his eyes. I saw it."

Understanding softened Anya’s dark eyes. She took her second by the arm and guided her away from the hustle of the village centre, to a cluster of boulders behind most of the houses. She chose a large, flat one to sit on. The cold seeped through the seat of her pants.  She patted the spot next to her. Lexa hesitated, and sat.  She stared straight ahead, her eyes still out of focus – or rather, focused on an image from her memory.

Anya was silent as she watched the girl. How should she approach the subject? She had never before had a second this young, let alone one who made her first kill before her twelfth year. It was a tough thing to talk about in the best of cases, and even harder with a second was as sensitive and perceptive as Lexa. This wasn’t a child who could be comforted by a simple compliment or a command to keep busy.

Finally she spoke, and the silence cracked like a twig under a boot. “Here, give me this.” She took the dagger from the smaller hand, and was met with no resistance as the fingers relinquished their grip on the handle. Anya sheathed the dagger. “You fought well."

Lexa dipped her head ever so slightly, but gave no other sign that she heard her mentor speak.

“Are you injured?” Anya tried again. She didn’t like treating her second like a child, but she was a little worried that in her shocked state, Lexa wouldn’t think to get her wounds looked at until she was bleeding to death.

Lexa began to shake her head, but then she extended her left arm. There was a scrape against her arm guard, and where the metal ended the brown fabric of her sleeve was sliced open and stained black. Anya examined her forearm. The wound wasn’t deep or life-threatening at all, thankfully. But blood black as tar still welled from it, and her stomach turned at the unnatural colour. But she refused to let this show on her face. Instead she said, “It’s not serious, but you should see the healer about that."

Lexa nodded once, still not looking at her. Anya was at a lost for words. Her usual tough, practical approach, she feared, would do worse than nothing for Lexa, who thought too much, who _felt_ too much, too deeply. Perhaps if she told her that she did well, that she would get used to battle and death because she was born to be a leader...

“Will it ever go away?” Anya was startled by Lexa’s voluntary sentence. And it _was_ voluntary, not blurted out in an uncontrollable impulse, but each word deliberately articulated. Lexa turned to finally face her mentor, and Anya could swear that those green eyes were a shade darker, the golden specks gone from them, as though some shadow had made its home in her spirit and chased away the last remnants of her childhood.

How could she answer that question? That someday you would be so used to taking a life, that you no longer felt anything with each kill? That you could be immune to grief and remorse, so much that you could unfeelingly watch a warrior’s spirit leave their eyes and join those who came before them? Surely, that was worse than the truth – that it would never go away, that each death would stay with you, be branded on your spirit like kill marks on your skin. Anya was never one for coddling, especially not with her second, whom she was responsible for training to be one of the best warriors in Trikru, and most definitely not with the girl who might someday be Commander. So she said, “It will get easier to bear, with time. But you’ll feel this way again – the next time you take a life, and the next and the next. Maybe not as strongly, but you will feel it.” Lexa’s eyes grew round. A shine crept back into them, but it was a fearful light and it almost made Anya prefer the blankness before. So she continued on, “and that is as it should be. Death should never be something easy to give. It leaves its mark on you. And when you forget that, the price of each life, you forget mercy."

Lexa’s eyes were unfocused once again. Not on a memory, bur rather turned inwards, mulling over and absorbing Anya’s words. When she looked up at her mentor again, her gaze was less clouded than it had been. Some of their usual spark – determined and intelligent – had returned. She did not have to say a word for Anya to know that this was a lesson she would never forget.

She looked up at the sky above the village, turning from indigo to deep purple. The earliest and brightest stars were just visible. The princess, alone without her guards. The wing-tip of the eagle and the tail of the viper. And alone in its perpetual journey, the wanderer. This was the first night it was back from a lonely passage through skies unknown to the twelve clans.

Anya decided to give Lexa a moment alone, to process what had happened and what she had said. She gave matter-of-fact instructions that she expected Lexa to have her arm checked by the healer, once he had dealt with the worst of the injuries. Lexa’s answer was the same wordless nod. Just before Anya returned to the village centre, where the post-battle flurry was dying down and was replaced by the quiet grief of those whose loved ones had been killed, she turned back to look at her second. The girl’s face was still turned upwards at the sky, her hands clasped loosely in her lap. On her face was an expression of serenity.

 


	3. iii. love

“Please, please, please,” Lexa pleaded. Her eyes squeezed shut, hands clasped tightly in front of her, facing the sky where the wanderer, her special _skaifaya_ , was coursing through her stable companions. Lexa had never wanted something so much in her life. All she had wanted before this – Anya’s praise, a new technique learned, Commander Erik’s approval – all that faded in comparison to this.

“Let her love me."

Lexa kom Trikru may be a Nightblood, Anya’s former second, and the best fighter of fifteen summers that her clan had ever seen. But none of that could stop her from tumbling, head first, uncontrollable, into love. At times she felt as though she was basking in the sun’s warm glow on a late spring day, others like she was caught in an unexpected current in the river and carried along powerless. Her insides felt, in turn, like they were filled with liquid sunlight, or wrung and squeezed like wet washing.

This was the first time she fell in love, and, Lexa knew, the _only_ time, because how could anyone alive on Earth possibly make her feel remotely the same way? She was hit by it at the most unexpected time, in the most unexpected way.

Literally. With a staff of ash. It was back in autumn, when Lexa finished her apprenticeship under Anya and was sent to Polis along with the other Nightbloods of her age. They were taught by Commander Erik and Titus, the Flamekeeper, but sometimes they trained with other young warriors and seconds of their age. One session, in the training ground in the woods just outside of Polis, Lexa was paired with her. Lexa’s own age, brown-skinned and long-limbed, with a head of frizzy curls and dark eyes that glimmered with a hint of mischief. She knocked Lexa flat on her backside. Lexa was momentarily stunned, both at her defeat and the girl’s full lips. Costia extended her hand to help her up and burst into Lexa’s reverie and her world. She smiled, her teeth gleaming white as moonshine, and she said in the sweetest, richest voice like the glide of a hand over a purring cat, “caught you off guard?"

She did. Suddenly putting her guard up, not letting anyone in, not showing her feelings like Titus taught her – that seemed like a tremendous waste of time. For the rest of that session, Lexa’s palm tingled and her blood turned into bubbles.

Throughout all of autumn and winter, Lexa forgot what it meant to keep her heart hidden. That didn’t matter anymore. All that did was spending time with Costia. And Lexa did all she could to find excuses for that. She volunteered for the same jobs – patrols, hunting. Partnered with her when they trained. Since then, the leaves had turned red and brittle, had fallen and been replaced by snow. Now they were unfurling again like green moths, accompanied by pale buds that promised to bloom. Behind her now, near the training ground just outside Polis’s gates, the black branches were dotted with buds as white as the snow that melted a moon ago.

“What are you doing out here?” Lexa jumped at the voice. But even as she scrambled for an excuse in her mind she knew that it was not Titus or General Clem who spoke but –

“Costia.” The name caught in her throat and she could hear the longing in her voice, raw as a fresh graze, wafting into the night like candlesmoke. “I was just – “ _thinking about you, like I do every waking moment_ “ – looking at the stars.” But the stars in the sky paled in comparison to the ones in Costia’s eyes, as bright as though they held an entire galaxy.

Costia smiled. “I come out here sometimes, at night. I want to see the world when it’s quiet."

Lexa nodded slowly, eyes wide and wild as a cornered deer. Unsure of what she could say. Because while banter with Costia had grown easy in the day, when they were part of a group that included the other Nightbloods or seconds, at night and alone it made her feel exposed and vulnerable. As though opening her mouth would spill out each of her deepest secrets and desires.

Costia’s face was tilted up and gilded silver by starlight. “My village is next to a lake,” she said, “And on a clear night you could see all the stars above reflected in the water.” She spread her arms out, slowly turning in a circle as though she were there, with stars above and below her. 

Lexa strolled closer, each footsteps light and deliberate, not trusting herself to speak.

“And if you were on a boat on the water, it felt like you were among the stars.” Costia continued. Her slow arc made her turn to face Lexa. Lexa wanted to find the constellations in her eyes. “And, if you reached out into the water, you felt like you could catch a star.” She trailed a hand through the air slowly, as though she were moving it through water, “like this.” Her fingers fit between Lexa’s.

Lexa’s eyes shot up from their joined hands to Costia’s face. Her full lips were in a shy smile. Lexa was giddy, like she had drank the stars from the lake of Costia’s words and they were floating, dancing in her belly. “I think,” she whispered, never taking her eyes from Costia’s face, “that I’ve caught one tonight."

When they kissed, Lexa closed her eyes and thanked the wanderer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for disappearing. but posting this chapter today feels apt.


	4. iv. wisdom

“For luck,” Costia told her after they kissed. The single tear on her cheek glittered like a lonely star that had fallen from the galaxy of her eyes. It might have been – _should_ have been – the last time they ever saw each other. The last kind touch Lexa felt before she died.

But she didn’t die. She killed – and killed and killed and killed – until she was the last one standing in a battleground stained with blood as black as the stream from her nose. The crowd cheered her name, Costia loudest of all. Fists high in the air, hair bouncing. Lexa wanted to take her hands and tell her that she fought for her, but she was ushered away. The ceremony was complete with a quick slice to the back of her neck and – as soon as the wound became a scar – the tattoo of the sacred symbol over it. To mark her as the successor of the spirit. 

If only leading was that easy.

The first weeks after her conclave were some of the worst in her life. Many in the twelve clans revolted. For a myriad of reasons – which boiled down to the fact that they didn’t trust a girl of sixteen to lead them. Perhaps even more confusing were all her advisors. Titus, Gustus, Indra, Clem, Trystan… everyone told her what she should do, and she had to quickly learn who to trust and who to listen to (Titus, always Titus).

Through all this, Costia never changed, never treated her differently. Costia who filled their room with candles, because they reminded her of hope, and of a starlit lake. Costia, who was someone to come home to at the end of each day. Who listened to her, letting her unburden her worries. Who was her last tie to the not-long ago time from another lifetime, one where she wasn’t Commander of the twelve clans. Who helped her take off the century-old mantle of _Heda_ ; who made her forget, at least for a few moments, everything except Costia’s name. 

But sometimes she woke in the middle of the night, Costia still be asleep beside her, and the weight of all she had shed would crash onto her at once. All those she was responsible for. All she had to live up to. All the decisions and indecisions waiting for her to make. All the lives to take or spare. She took more than spared, but she never forgot Anya’s lesson of compassion and she felt each death as though a kill mark was etched on her heart, deeper than kill marks. But she spared the Ice Nation rebels, after they pled guilty. It was Titus’s suggestion – “you can’t afford to start a war with Azgeda” – it sounded wise, but that didn’t diminish the foreboding that prickled along her spine.

The feeling of unease was back now, along with the suffocating weight of being Commander. Lexa remembered a picture she had seen once, in one of Titus’s old books, of a man who propped the heavens up on his shoulders. That was what she felt like. Holding up far more than she could. She slipped out of bed, Costia’s form rising and falling, peaceful, faithful. The curtains wafted into the room, silver-lit, carrying with them the fresh breeze and starshine. Lexa stepped into their folds, letting the soft fabric encircle her for a moment and tickle her bare ankles. Polis sprawled beneath her, dark except for the occasional fire. The early autumn breeze was almost cold, nipping her cheekbones and fingertips. It smelled like the forest, like crushed pines. The tension slipped off Lexa’s shoulders like orange leaves drifting onto a brown, crisp carpet.

It was a moonless night, and the stars glimmered in the inky blue-black of the sky. Flickering like candle-flame. They looked exactly as they did that night eleven years ago, when Lexa’s mother had brought her into the forest and taught her the names of the stars. For the first time in more years than she could remember, Lexa thought of her _Nomon_. Where was she? Still in the Trikru village Lexa had been born in, miles away from Polis? Was she looking at the stars now and thinking of her Nightblood daughter? Did she have other children, and did she teach them about the stars? Did she know, wherever she was, that her firstborn was now Commander, with the fate of the twelve clans resting on her? Did she remember that night as clearly as Lexa did? 

The wanderer was now passing by the hound’s sharp teeth. Lexa closed her eyes and made a wish. Where once she wished to be Commander, she now wished for wisdom. Wisdom to lead, to serve, and to protect those she loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for disappearing! Hopefully I can update this fic soon, I have the next chapter written and waiting to be edited.  
> Writer's block is a bitch and so is real life.


	5. v. strength

Even though she was wrapped in a thick grey fur, Lexa was shivering. She couldn’t seem to get warm anymore. She couldn’t even bring herself to light the candles. It felt wrong, when _she_ wasn’t here. The candles were always theirs; both of theirs. Now they were just hers.

She would never let anyone see her like this. She was the Commander, and she couldn’t show weakness. Titus had seen, but she trusted him not to use it against her. He had been with her, when she found out. When she opened the “gift". He must have seen the terror in her eyes before she turned around so the messenger couldn’t see the shock and horror and helplessness that rippled across her face. Her whole body shook and her fists clenched as she told the guards to “take it away" in a low voice on the verge of trembling. Titus had witnessed how she collapsed to her knees as soon as they were alone. No tears, because the part of her that contained the capacity for tears and all feeling was ripped out of her. Severed, like the head of her beloved. There was no outpour, no howl of grief. She wrapped her arms around herself, tight across her middle, making no sound but choking gasps.

She appeared in public later that morning as though nothing had happened. And every morning after that. The Commander took no time from her duties, even though no one would have faulted her for it. Costia was no secret. Everyone knew she was the Commander’s. Everyone could see that it wasn’t a casual fling, or a relationship built to satisfy her physical desires. Everyone had seen how their stoic Commander softened when she reached for the dark-skinned girl’s hand. How the barrier behind her eyes dropped when their eyes met. How she became more human.

Now the last vestiges of her humanity were gone. The Commander became even colder than before. Even more ruthless and unforgiving. She was never unjust, never acted on a whim. Her judgement was always fair and severe. A man from Trikru was found to be harbouring Azgeda spies. They were all executed. One of her top advisors, Leo, was proven to behind the smuggling of Mountain Man weapons. She banished him to the Dead Zone.

Maybe her humanity had died with Costia. At least that was what people believed. And she wanted them to believe that – she was the Commander, and she was above things like grief, sympathy, and love. Maybe if she pretended hard enough it would be true.

Yet here she was, sitting in bed shivering despite the thickest fur wrapped around her. Shivering because she had no tears left to cry, because something inside her was cold and dead and could never be warmed except by the arms of a girl who should be warm and alight with life and love but was instead cold and dead.

Lexa got up, dropping the fur behind her. It was the middle of the night. Far below her window the houses of Polis were silent and dark, like they too were in mourning. She felt like the only person halfway alive in Polis. The city was Costia’s tomb, and Lexa the ghost that haunted it. She put on a black cloak and went out. Wandered through the city. The places they used to go to, hand in hand, before Lexa became Commander, and they were both carefree and alive. The alley where they popped stolen candies into their mouths. The blacksmith’s shop where she got Costia a curved dagger with three green stones set in the handle. The roof of the stables where they watched the sunrise together.

Outside the city, she passed by the clearing where they trained together, where Lexa was starstruck by the brown-skinned girl with a head full of curls and eyes full of stars. The series of toppled columns they had balanced on. She could still see that summer’s day where Costia strolled along the rounded surface, graceful as a cat. They climbed to the top of the only standing column and kissed on it as the sun set behind them. And then – Lexa stumbled to a stop. Her feet, in their memorial of Costia, brought her here. The clearing where they first kissed. Where Lexa had wished on a star – and it had granted her wish.

The same stars spread across the sky now – the princess, the eagle, and the lonely wanderer. They were all dispassionately cold – but then they have always been dispassionate and cold and cruel. Too far above humans to care about things like life and death and love and grief. Lexa had known that from the beginning. Yet she still wished on them.

“Are you happy now?” Her voice was neither loud or outraged, but it trembled through the still night with a deep bitterness. “You gave her to me and you took her away. You took everything – my mother, my mentor, my love –“ _and me. My childhood, my innocence… my life._

The wanderer always granted her wishes. She realized with the perfect clarity of hindsight. She wished for Costia’s love and she had it for two blissful years, when she should have had twenty. She wished for compassion against her enemies, and it was her mercy for Queen Nia that ultimately killed Costia. She had wished to be Commander, and had to bear that mantle with all its crushing weight.

“To lead is to be alone,” Titus had told her. It was only now that she knew what that meant.

So even though she no longer trusted the stars, she lifted her head and made one last wish to the wanderer. “Give me strength,” she said in a voice hard as solid granite, “to be alone. To close my heart to any who might wish to enter it. For love is a weakness, and I cannot afford to be weak. To protect me and my people, give me strength so that I will not love again."

The wanderer sailed above her, through space dust and rocks and the stars that never moved but were no more trustworthy. The wanderer always granted. And Lexa was willing to bear the consequences of this last wish, from now until her spirit joined Costia’s, in the place where the stars never dimmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one more... I promise it will be a happy ending.


	6. vi. home

It was a moonless night. Polis was almost silent, except for the whisper of leaves as they caught from the wind the scent of starlight. A shadow across the city told of an owl making its way home after a successful hunt. From the trees in the west came a hoot. There was a rustling of leaves, an answering call. And all was still.

High in the tower of Polis, Lexa trailed her finger across the pale sky, from star to brown star. Mapping the constellations of Clarke’s shoulders and back. The galaxy shifted with an exhale.

Carried by the wind, the curtains billowed into the room, silvery with starlight. Lexa could smell how fresh the air was, could sense the promise of summer. The sky would be clear tonight, she could smell it. The curtains wafted, as though the stars were beckoning her. She untangled her limbs from around Clarke’s body. The sky-girl turned around, brow furrowed, but Lexa tugged on her hand. “I want to show you something.” Clarke’s head tilted to the side, but the crease disappeared from her forehead. She followed her lover to the window. She shivered as the cool air stroked her skin. Standing behind her, Lexa rubbed at her goosebumped arms. She rested one hand on Clarke’s hip, and with the other reached past Clarke’s shoulder to point at the night sky.

“Look.”

Clarke’s head tilted up and Lexa watched not the stars but her expression. Jaw slackened, mouth falling open, eyes round with wonder like a child’s. Lexa didn’t try stopping the smile that tugged on her lips. A memory flashed through her mind. Of a different girl, in a nearby clearing in a faraway time, under the same stars.

“Wow,” Clarke breathed. “I’ve never seen them like this before."

“You see them better in the summer,” Lexa said, lacing her fingers with Clarke’s over her navel. She had waited for moons for a clear summer night. “They have names, you know,” she added. She freed one hand from Clarke’s to link a zigzagging series of stars. “You see that? That’s the fish. That bright one there is the princess, the ones around her are the female warriors who are her guards. And over there, that’s the hunter, with the sword and belt –"

“Oh, I know that one!” Clarke exclaimed. “Different name thought."

Lexa hadn’t considered this before, that the Sky People must see more stars than she ever did. “Do your people have the same stars?"

“ _Well._ ” Clarke stressed the word. Front teeth sank into her lip. Pondering. “The stars are the same, but I guess we’ve got different constellations."

“Maybe you can show me yours,” Lexa suggested.

Clarke laughed, shaking her head. “I don’t know any. Didn’t pay attention in class, didn’t seem important at the time. Besides, they looked different in space."

“How?” Lexa asked. What did the stars look like to the wanderer, who incessantly passed them, season after season?

Clarke shrugged. “There are more of them, but they’re colder and they don’t really sparkle. You could see them clearly, but they weren’t pretty, like they are from down here. They’re really just burning balls of gas, you know, and up there it’s clear that that’s all they are. Anyway,” she added, “it was Earth that’s beautiful from up there."

Lexa tried to imagine what that must be like – to be surrounded by stars that were not beautiful or inviting or mysterious, but simply cold and distant. Without the glamour that it took Lexa love and death and heartbreak to see past. Stars, just as they are. Except the wanderer, who was as different from the stars as Lexa. Who had always seen the stars as they are, who searched ceaselessly for her home. The wanderer, who had fallen from the cold skies and the company of the stars and landed –

“Well, I’m happy you can see them from here. How beautiful they are.”

Clarke gave a happy sigh, leaning into Lexa. “I used to wish to be on Earth. Trees, grass, the wind on my skin, the ground under my feet. It all seemed so unreachable.” She laughed. "But I never thought about the stars.”

“You know,” Lexa said, squeezing Clarke’s middle. "Our people have a legend. That if you pick a star to be your guardian, and wish on no other stars, your wishes will be granted. Choose carefully, for each star will answer your wish in its own way."

Clarke turned around to look at Lexa. She leaned back against the window, cool night air pressed against her back, starlight illuminating the constellations of her skin. She ran her hands down Lexa’s arms, soft as the breeze that swirled and lifted the curtains. “Do you believe that?"

There was a hint of a smile on Lexa’s lips, outlined in silver light. “The wanderer’s always granted my wishes."

A crease appeared between Clarke’s eyebrows. “Which one is that?"

Lexa's smile was brighter than the princess that glittered high above, surrounded by her guards. “She’s found her way home at last."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading! And for bearing with my sporadic updates.
> 
> (If you like Clexa and angsty fluff/fluffy angst, slow updates, and an actual PLOT, check out my other fic "Something Worth Living For")


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